But a closer look reveals a few hallmarks of a bygone era -- a room with two barber chairs where a pair of barbers cut only menís hair, the trademark striped pole rotating at the front door and the easy, personal banter between the barbers and their customers.

Barbers like Barry Williams, owner of Barryís Hair Design Studio, have had to change with the times, to adapt to a series of generations who prefer long bangs to flat tops and seek styled cuts, not shaves.

"Weíre dinosaurs. After our generation, there wonít be any barbers left," said Bruce Talbot, 63, who has been barbering in Houma for nearly 45 years.

Williams, 65, and others of his generation represent the last wave of old-school barbers, the remnants of the traditional American barbershop. They remember a time when barbershops served as social outposts, havens for men to share community news and catch up with friends.

"It was always a place to gather," Williams said.

The role of the barbershop has changed as modern life replaced the crowded waiting rooms with scheduled appointments and simple haircuts with hairstyling.

Yet much like the bartender, the role of the barber -- listener, storyteller, news dispenser, advisor and confidant -- remains intact, according to longtime local barbers.

SHAVE AND A HAIRCUT, 75 CENTS

Uni-Kut, the Houma salon owned by 68-year-old barber Faquard Lirette, also reflects contemporary trends, offering hairstyling for men and women in a modern-looking setting.

But like Williams, Lirette remembers a different era.

When Lirette started barbering 48 years ago, the Houma area included about 60 barbers. Now, he and another local barber estimate Terrebonne Parish encompasses 15 to 20 barbers.

Lirette went straight from high school to barber school in New Orleans, graduated in late 1959, and began an 18-month apprenticeship with a Houma barber. At that time, a man could walk into a barbershop and a few hours and a dollar later, leave with a freshly trimmed flat top, a clean shave and shined shoes. Haircuts cost 50 cents, shaves and shoe shines 25 cents each. Barbers still mixed

lather in mugs.

Williams developed a fondness for the spirited barbershop atmosphere as a child, when at age 12 or so, he began shining shoes in a Thibodaux barbershop. In those days, customers still visited the barber for daily shaves and some stopped by just to read the shopís comic books, Williams said.

His positive experiences with barbers led him to barber school right after high school. When Williams began barbering in 1962, men didnít make appointments, but walked into one-room barbershops and waited their turns in the chair. The roomful of men would use their wait time to discuss the goings-on of the day; often, their routine visits would put them in the barbershop with the same group of men each time, allowing them to become like a small family.

"It was not in the day of being in a hurry," Williams said. "You didnít have that rush world."

The constant flow of walk-in customers could be rough on barbers, he said. Barbers would begin their days early and sometimes work late into the evening to finish the ever-growing line of men and boys. Saturdays brought a brutal onslaught of working men and their sons, Williams said.

The Thibodaux native said he entered the profession on the tail end of the shaving days, when older men would still have the barber sculpt or remove their facial hair.

"Barbers did more shaves than haircuts in the morning," Williams said. "People would come daily for shaves for 15 cents."

Customers also had their shoes shined at the barbershop when Williams began his career in the early Ž60s, but that tradition, too, was waning.

Talbot, who owns a Houma barbershop and salon with Leroy Pierron, likewise did his share of shaves and flat tops when he began barbering in Houma in 1963.

The popular shaving rituals ended with the advent of the safety razor in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Williams said.

Talbot said he believes the near-extinction of barbershop shaves led to the disappearance of another once-common barbershop service -- facials. Barbers used to offer facials, some with mud packs, most with facial cream followed by hot towels, and all with facial massages, to clean customersí pores.

That trend seems to be making a comeback, though, for both male and female customers, Talbot said.

CHANGING STYLES

Barbering has certainly changed its look since the late 1950s and early 1960s, said the remnant of local barbers who worked in that era.

Most of those still cutting hair had to make major adjustments throughout the decades.

As American life grew more hectic, barbers transitioned from mainly walk-in business to mostly appointments.

Local men struggled initially to get accustomed to the change, Talbot said.

Williams began taking appointments when he opened his own shop in Houma in 1968. Talbot said he also changed to taking appointments in the late 1960s.

For many local barbers, the move to appointment books coincided with another serious switch -- the shift from haircutting to hairstyling.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, several Houma area barbers said they started styling hair, a more elaborate procedure that involves creating a look rather than simply trimming outgrown hair.

"We do more than cut hair, we create a style," Williams said.

At that time, The Beatles left their mark on barbershops as well as music.

Barbers had to change tactics to woo in a generation of teens and young adults with identities entrenched in long hair.

Williams and his fellow barber and co-worker, Ronnie Cooper, grew their own hair out and touted using shears to comfort long-haired men fearing the traditional barber clippers.

"We built trust that if you want it long, youíll get it long," Williams said.

The barbers often found themselves playing unwitting mediators between long-haired teens and outraged parents, who would arrive at the shop demanding the barber cut the teenís hair.

"Teens havenít changed," Williams said. Hair still tends to herald the beginning of independence, and sometimes rebellion, for teens, he said.

"Hair defines a person," Williams said. "Itís always been a statement of who that person wants to be or who they think they are."

The invasion of long hair, coupled with the switch to hair styling, resulted in more barbers taking on female clients.

The shaggy, layered styles of the 1970s werenít a far cry from the menís styles of the day, so barbers like Lirette and Talbot put their shears to work on the ladies.

Lirette opened Uni-Kut in 1970, the name a reflection of its identity as a salon serving both men and women.

Lirette, who maintains that Uni-Kut was the first unisex salon in Houma, said he attended monthly classes in New Orleans to learn modern womenís styles, because beauty salons did not teach them at the time.

Talbot said he has cut hair for both genders since he started barbering, but in the 1970s and Ž80s, saw an increase in female clients as women rushed to get the Dorothy Hamill look.

Adjusting to the times has paid off, local barbers said, as barbers like Lirette and Williams have been tapped to teach hairstyling in several states.

Williamsí shop has been featured in educational videos for Redken, and chosen by the hair-product company as its nominee for Salon Todayís Top 200 salons.

A RARE RELIC

On Main Street in downtown Houma, a small piece of the past sits nestled among much newer businesses, a pair of local bars.

A peek through the window of O.J.ís Barber Shop is a peek into a medley of several bygone decades, but mostly the 1940s and í50s.

The small, one-room shop has hosted hair cuts since the 1920s, said O.J. Foucheux, owner of O.J.ís Barber Shop.

Foucheuxís older brother, S.P. Foucheux, also a barber, took over the barbershop in the late 1930s.

O.J. Foucheux graduated from high school in the early 1940s, served in the U.S. Army Air Corps for two years, then returned to Houma to work with his brother. O.J. Foucheux took the shop over when his brother died.

The 80-year-old barber, who works three and a half days a week, said he has not changed his barbering ways to adjust to the times.

He doesnít take appointments, just walk-ins, and still offers shaves and facial massages, though customers donít request them nearly as often as in the past, he said.

Foucheux said he did learn some specialized haircutting as hairstyles changed through the years, but does not do hairstyling.

"I donít specialize in those new haircuts," he said. "I just stuck with the regular, old-time haircuts."

Thatís fine with customers like Clayton Domangue of Gibson, who grew up playing marbles with Foucheux. Domangue has made monthly stops at Foucheuxís shop for decades.

"I learned how to cut hair on him," Foucheux said, as he trimmed hair from the sides of Domangueís mostly bald scalp.

Politicians, lawyers, custodians, offshore workers, doctors, bus drivers, dentists -- they all get their hair cut, making barbershops one of few places where "all walks of life" meet on common ground, local barbers said.

The barbershops of yesteryear exemplified this, as folks of every profession and trade sat gabbing together as they waited their turns.

"They come in here, theyíre on the same playing field," Williams said. "Weíre all still people no matter the profession you choose."

Television personalities, the Archbishop of New Orleans, a former bishop of the Houma-Thibodaux diocese, political figures and business owners, and other well-known characters, such as restaurateur Al Copeland and New Orleans radio personality Garland Robinette, have sat in Williamsí barber chair.

Other clients were awed to see a doctor, who delivered numerous local babies, getting his hair cut, Williams said.

As one of few professionals licensed to touch people, to shape and create a key part of their identity with shears and clippers, hairstylists get a closer view of people than most, Williams said.

"For people to allow you into their personal zone is all about trust. Because of that, theyíll share their personal life with you," Williams said.

And once they find a barber they trust, customers often stick with that barber for life. Local barbers said they have been cutting hair for some clients since they started barbering more than 40 years ago. Several said in recent years, they have given first haircuts to boys whose grandfathers they also gave their first hair cuts.

Dustin Mire, 22, got his first haircut from Williams, and insists on visiting Williams for cuts despite living in Baton Rouge to attend LSU.

"Trust is the main thing," Mire said, describing how a barber in the LSU student union once cut his bangs too short, messing up his long, sweeping style.

A former Houma resident who lives in Dallas still gets his hair cut by Lirette. Commercials often use images of barbershops to represent familiarity, security and Smalltown USA, Talbot said.

At Clippas Barber Shop, customers can feel secure that theyíll get a hair cut to match their urban style, Scott said.

"Weíre more of a hip-hop, urban crowd," Scott said.

The barbershop caters to minorities, a niche largely ignored by the mainstream chain salons, he said. As a result, Clippas Barber Shop draws a bevy of local black men and teens, especially the younger crowd, but also attracts men of other races, Scott said.

"Itís not just a haircut, itís a way of life," Scott said.

The 32-year-old Houma native and his cousin, 34-year-old Earl "Eezy" Ross Jr., a barber in training, come from a family steeped in musicians, ministers -- and barbers.

Uncles, cousins, grandfathers and others have all wielded the clippers at various points. A Clippas barber known as s.ac is known among the local rap scene, but also chose to follow in the footsteps of his father, a longtime Houma barber.

Clippas seems a colorful hybrid of the barbershops of yesterday and today, as regular customers use the shop as a hangout, and a cast of local characters pop in and out daily. The equipment and look is modern, the atmosphere is a contemporary take on the traditional barbershop.

"When I was in school, we didnít have a barbershop atmosphere" for young guys, Scott said.

The barbershop offers an escape from lifeís constant drama, a refuge so relaxing and entertaining that Scott struggles to tear away from the place on his days off.

"This is a black manís country club in here," he said. "You can talk about anything under the sun and it stays in here."

Youth tend to look up to the barbers, and often lack fatherly figures at home, so the men at Clippas strive to use their role-model status to make positive impacts, they said.

Wednesday morning, a group of men engaged in an impassioned debate on which music star boasts the better dance moves, Usher or Ginuwine, and who more closely measures up to smooth-moving icon Michael Jackson.

"Donít nobody dance closer to Mike than Usher," one man bellowed.

Thereís freedom of speech outside the barbershop, but inside, that right gets kicked up a notch, Scott said.

"Itís freedom of speech in here -- itís in the raw. Itís a lovely place. I love it," he said.

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